


See You In My Dreams

by That_random_weirdo



Series: The Great Kinej Marathon [5]
Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 11:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19109068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/That_random_weirdo/pseuds/That_random_weirdo
Summary: "Inej did not know what the dreams meant; just that they had to mean something. He fascinated her, this simple boy with a simple life that was so very different from her own. She found herself looking forward first to seeing him every night, then to meeting him in real life. Her cousins told her not to get her hopes up, that with all the people in the world she had almost no chance of meeting her farmer's boy. But still, she hoped. For if the saints had bound them in such a way, then surely they would bring them together."





	See You In My Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is a lot later than I had said it was going to be. In my defense, it is also a lot longer than I had originally planned.
> 
> This is dedicated to my dear friend Candy, who helps me brainstorm and refine my ideas. This was actually a brainchild from a joint vacation of ours, just as so many of my other fics are. Candy, this one's for you.

When Inej was young, she had dreamed of a farmer's child.

He was young too and had a head full of black curls and eyes of the deepest brown. His skin was pale despite the hours he spent in the fields with his brother. His laughter reminded her of the wind through the grasses, and his smile was a charming, crooked thing, brighter than the sun that beat down on the little plots of grain.

Inej did not know what the dreams meant; just that they had to mean something. He fascinated her, this simple boy with a simple life that was so very different from her own. She found herself looking forward first to seeing him every night, then to meeting him in real life. Her cousins told her not to get her hopes up, that with all the people in the world she had almost no chance of meeting her farmer's boy. But still, she hoped. For if the saints had bound them in such a way, then surely they would bring them together. 

So she waited, and she dreamed.  
~~~~~  
When Kaz was young, he had dreamed of a girl with flowers in her hair.

She had burnt-caramel skin, dark hair flowing loosely over her shoulders. She walked the high wire far above the eager crowd, petals falling from her makeshift crown as she swayed with an imaginary breeze. It was effortless for her, as easy as breathing. It was like she was some spirit of the air, set apart from the people below. 

She listed from side to side dangerously, but it was only an illusion. The spirit was in control. And when she descended, she looked up to where her parents had started their routine. While her parents were extraordinary in their own right, Kaz thought she had something they didn't. Even as talented as they were, they were still recognizably human. But when the girl was in her element, she emanated an eerie grace that could never be replicated by any mortal being.

She was mesmerizing, and from his very first dream of her, Kaz was enchanted.

He could only hope that this ethereal being would be enchanted with him too.  
~~~~~  
As Kaz got older, so did the girl in his dreams. 

She became older than he was, and sadder than she should. There were no more crowds, no more family, no more wire. Just bright streamers of false silks and a constant stream of faceless men. Her parents were gone, in their place was a cruel woman swathed in layers of gaudy blue, with a string of diamonds worth more than anything he would ever see on his father's farm adorning her neck.

Before, she had seemed like a spirit of the air. Now she was just a spirit. She was a ghost, drifting in and out of his mind in the night, no life left in her eyes. Gone was the girl with flowers in her hair. 

And though he had never really known her, Kaz felt a sort of immeasurable, pervasive sadness as he watched her brilliance turn to grey. He was pensive and withdrawn for weeks afterward, to the point where his parents sent for a doctor who could tell them nothing of the cause behind his sudden bout of melancholy. 

When Jordie asked him what was wrong, Kaz just shook his head and refused to answer, for there were some things that even his beloved brother could never know.  
~~~~~  
As Inej got older, so did the boy in her dreams.

He became older than she was, and more ruthless than she could have ever imagined he would be. He was pale and cruel, a shark tearing at the underbelly of a smoke-filled city. The planes of his face were hard and unforgiving, a twisted mask of his former self. His smile was a sharp, dangerous thing, nothing like the smile he'd worn as a child back during simpler times. He took advantage of and even thrived in the opulent misery of the district, and it made Inej sick to watch.

Gone was the gentle farmer’s boy she had known in her sleep. A demon wore his face. This new entity was effortlessly brutal, cunning, and manipulative. And even though he was the same person in blood and bone and flesh, this boy in black was not someone to be trusted.

Inej had the feeling that he meant it to be that way.  
~~~~~  
Then Kaz’s father died, and he and Jordie headed to the city to start their new lives. The thought of leaving the farm behind didn't scare him. In Kaz’s mind, the city was a place of opportunity, a place full of interesting people and interesting things. 

A place where he might meet the girl with the flowers in her hair. 

Before long, Kaz was caught up in the ceaseless bustle of city life. Jordie was making investments and earning money and for a while, it seemed like they were doing well.

Then Hertzoon disappeared with all their money, their attempts to find him fruitless. In one fell swoop, their visions of riches were gone. They became just another two victims among hundreds, struggling to survive on their meager savings. But still, things could be worse. They were alive and they had each other, and for Kaz, that was enough.

The finale of their downfall came in the form of a plague. It was only a cough at first, then a fever, then a rash. The Queen’s Lady Plague ravaged Ketterdam, leaving bodies in its wake. A fine ash drifted in with the breeze; the last remnants of the affected left behind as they burned. 

Jordie was stricken first. Kaz could only watch helplessly as his brother deteriorated, taking with him all hope that they would be able to rise up together in the hostile city and take back what they had lost. He succumbed to the sickness soon after, clutching his brother’s sweat-slick hand with his own shaking fingers, burning within even though their hideout was damp and chilled. 

He woke up to cold, Jordie’s hand slipping from his as he was pulled away. Kaz was too weak to protest, arm twitching feebly as he tried to reach out towards the blurry figure who was carting his brother away. Then he was lifted onto one of the heavy-laden corpse barges, unable to scream or cry or give any sign that he was still alive. The barge began to move, pushing out further from the shore. Kaz was jostled by the sudden movement, struggling wildly as he fell into the inky waters below. Bodies tumbled from the overloaded ship, bobbing about at the surface like some sort of macabre children’s toy. He caught a glimpse of glassy eyes and blanched skin before being pulled under by the current. Dead hands clutched at his arms and legs, tugging him into the freezing depths. Kaz lashed out blindly, feeling brittle bones and pulpy flesh split beneath his feet. He broke the surface, gasping for air, and came face to face with his brother’s empty gaze. He clutched Jordie like a lifeline, using his brother’s bloated body to keep himself afloat.

He was exhausted and drenched to the bone by the time he made it back to land. The fever was gone, but he still burned within. It was a different fire, malicious and all-consuming. And in that moment, weak and shivering beside the disfigured corpse of his brother, he vowed to make everyone who had wronged them pay dearly for what they had done. 

Kaz rose through the ranks of the Dregs quickly. There was a steep learning curve; he botched a few heists, went to jail, and even irreparably damaged his leg, but emerged smarter and more ruthless each time. He earned the name Dirtyhands, learned all the tricks of the trade, spent hours perfecting his craft. He became Haskell's lieutenant before his seventeenth birthday. His heart was hardened against the suffering he saw and inflicted, but he never did forget the pain of Jordie’s death. He spurned human touch because it brought back memories that he was not equipped to handle, memories of suffocation, of caresses from cold fingers, of the waxy pallor and sickly stench of death. 

And so he became something akin to a myth, an untouchable figure, a symbol of human misery. He had transformed into something less- or more- than human in his singular quest for revenge.

The dreams had stopped when Jordie died. And as Kaz was reborn, he forgot about the spirit in silks, forgot about the girl he had wanted to meet. He had other plans now; plans that had no room for romance, had no room for her. And he moved ever-closer to his end goal, she faded from his mind entirely.

The Barrel was no place for childish dreams. So Kaz had locked them all away.  
~~~~~  
Then Inej was seized by strangers, her world plunged into a spiral of darkness. Everything was a blur of colors and loud voices and dizzying motion. The voices started and stopped continuously, but the words they spoke escaped her in her haze. Time passed, maybe hours, maybe days, where she was barely conscious. Strange figures flitted across the edges of her vision, but she could not be sure that they were real.

The first thing she saw clearly was the cold face of a woman in blue who inspected her with a critical gaze. Apparently satisfied, she stepped back to talk to the men waiting in the back of the stifling room. When she returned, she spoke of ownership and debt. Her words made no sense, jumbling together in Inej’s mind. 

Then her clothes were stripped away despite her clumsy protests, replaced by gaudy silks that offered no protection against the perpetual chill. She was given something that made her surroundings dissolve and her head feel full of cotton.

It was dark when she came to, her mouth dry and her forearm stinging. Lifting her arm took an enormous effort, but Inej brought it to her face nonetheless, seeking out the source of her discomfort. The outline of a peacock feather, painstakingly inscribed in lurid color, materialized out of the gloom. And as she traced the edges, memorizing all the intricate details, Inej felt a deep, pervasive fear grip her heart.

Her situation became terrifyingly clear when the men began to come, eager to see Tante Heleen’s latest acquisition. Though the mind-numbing drugs had already been flushed from her system, Inej’s head remained hazy, her thoughts in an ashy dreamscape far away from the horrors that awaited in the real world. She entered a strange fugue, drifting in and out of reality as her clients came and went, for she knew that if she stayed present while the men were there, she would lose the tenuous grip she had on her sanity. 

She rarely dreamed, and when she did, it was of her distant family. The boy in black was gone, startlingly absent in the dreams he had frequented for years. And though she had been afraid of him, Inej couldn't help mourning the disappearance of the boy she had seen since childhood. 

The dreams faded even more as time went by. They took a vital piece of her with them as they left. Now Inej always awoke feeling empty, like someone had scooped out all of her emotions as she slept, leaving behind a hollow shell. This emptiness was born of longing; longing for her home, for her family, for familiarity, for the boy in black.

And as the futile days and nights dragged on, Inej forgot the farmer's boy, forgot her boy in black. She had to concentrate to remember his face. Before long, his image slipped from her completely. He vanished slowly but surely as her spirits waned, the hope of rescue that had stayed with her through her torment all but gone.  
~~~~~  
Salvation came in the form of a crook.

Kaz Brekker was a dangerous man. While Inej ignored the other girls as much as she could, she still overhead snippets of conversation here and there as she drifted aimlessly through their gilded cage. They spoke of him with disgust and thinly veiled desire; spoke of his gloved hands and twisted leg and cruel face.

She had never actually seen him, she only knew that he was wicked and treacherous and that he bought secrets spilled by loose-lipped clients when their heads were hazy and logic muddled by the aftermath of pleasure. The fact that he worked with a woman like Tante Heleen cemented his place as a monster in her mind.

Inej caught her first glance of Brekker as he was leaving the Menagerie. He was closer to her age than she thought he'd be, though his terrible haircut made it hard to tell. His face was just as cruel as she'd expected, disgust written clearly across his sharp features. He had long, spidery hands; the hands of a pickpocket, or a magician. It was fitting; after all, some of the things Inej heard of him and his exploits had seemed like magic.

Surprisingly, he didn't immediately repulse her like she thought he would. She leaned forward for a closer look, her feet taking her towards him before she could think about what she was doing. “I can help you,” she whispered. 

He turned, and for a moment Inej could see a hint of surprise in his eyes. Then it was gone and he vanished, leaving her to wonder just how much of a mistake she had made. 

Tante Heleen summoned her the very next day.  
Inej approached her office with a sickening sense of anticipation twisting in the pit of her stomach, sure that Brekker had told her what she had tried to do. That feeling only intensified when she entered the room and saw Kaz standing by her captor’s desk, his expression twisted with contempt. Heleen didn't look much happier. Her nauseatingly perfect face was tainted with displeasure. However, the words she said were not the words Inej had expected to hear.

“Brekker has paid off your debt. You work for him now.”

The frantic thumping of Inej’s heart crashed to a stop. She followed Kaz as if she was in a daze, delirious with the prospect of leaving her hellish prison.

It wasn't until later that she wondered if she'd left behind one hell for another.  
~~~~~  
There was something about the Suli girl that unnerved Kaz deeply.

The way she had come up behind him without a sound despite the bells that adorned her gaudy costume was noteworthy enough; but there was something else, something deeper. Try as he might, Kaz couldn’t figure out what it was.

As someone who survived by knowing things his enemies did not, Kaz resented the feeling of confusion she left in him. His first instinct was to stay away until he could find out more, but a perverse strand of curiosity had already gripped his mind. The girl had said that she could help him. Perhaps she was right, even without knowing it. If she was as skilled as he thought she was, she had the potential to be an excellent spider. And a good spider was essential for someone in Kaz’s line of work. 

By morning he was decided. He would pay off the girl’s indenture to Heleen and put her to use as his spy. Even though she had no training, she would learn soon enough. She seemed smart and had shown herself to be opportunistic to an extent, traits that would give her an edge in the cutthroat world of the Barrel. 

And if he was a little more invested in her than he should be, then who was there to know?  
~~~~~  
Killing was easy in the moment, and came naturally in a way little else did.

That thought profoundly disturbed Inej, who was wondering what she had gotten herself into yet again. Still, she did not regret approaching Brekker, even with the weight of the sins he had her commit resting heavily on her mind. Life as an abomination was infinitely better than life as an object to be violated for someone else’s profit. 

He was just as cunning and monstrous as she’d been told, and more calculating than most gave him credit for. He wasn’t unduly evil as Inej had once thought he was; but still, it was clear that if Kaz Brekker was lacking in anything, it was a conscience. 

No one could ever accuse him of tenderness. And yet, he treated her better than she expected him to, better than he treated the rest of the Dregs. Though her status as a member of the gang was still debatable, given the fact that she had never received the tattoo that marked her as one of them. He never brought the topic up, but Inej had a feeling that he let her get away with it because of the day she had shown up with a bandage wrapped around the mangled skin of her forearm in place of the peacock feather that had marked her as the Suli lynx during her time at the Menagerie. He was a man who understood ownership in the worst ways, and subtly accommodated her issues regarding it. That’s not to say he didn’t own her in his own way; he had paid off her debt to Heleen in return for her service, something he never let her forget. He was demanding and insufferably sure of himself and constantly referred to her as an investment, but seemed to hold her in some high regard and had a basic respect for her as a person in his own strange way. It was all unbearably confusing.

Sometimes Inej thought that the sensation of displacement that loomed over her was a sort of penance for all the wrongs she had done. The strange feeling of distant remembrance that washed over her every time she saw Kaz was a new kind of torment in and of itself. It only got worse as time went on. She didn’t know why Kaz was so lenient, or why it felt so peculiarly right to be in his horrid company.

So she watched and stayed silent and did his bidding no matter how much it hurt, biding her time and praying to her saints for clarity with a new sort of desperation.  
~~~~~  
For the first time in years, Kaz dreamed of the girl in silks. 

She was somewhat foreign after her long absence, yet somehow more familiar than she had ever been. And as she stepped away with unearthly lightness, the realization hit him. He had only ever known one person to possess such ethereal grace and such a solid yet evanescent presence. The girl with the flowers in her hair was his spider, the empty girl in silks was his Wraith.

Then he shook his head in disgust. She was not his, would never be his, could never be his. Kaz had a purpose to fulfill, and he could not afford to get distracted by anything or anyone, not even the girl he had dreamed of as a child.

Besides, that child was no more. Kaz Rietveld had died with his brother on the frozen cobblestones of a heartless city years ago, and had taken all of his naive hopes with him.  
~~~~~  
Inej began to dream again soon after she left the Menagerie.

At first, her visions were jumbled and nonsensical. Then they materialized into something achingly familiar. The boy in black made his reappearance, though after his long absence he was almost as new to her as he was years ago.

His eyes were just as she remembered them; dark as the abyssal depths of the sea in the dimness of his quarters and infinite shades of darkest brown in the light. Brown was such a common color, but Inej could have recognized the boy in black by his eyes alone.

And with a jolt, she realized that she did. 

Inej had only ever met one person whose eyes enraptured her so. And as fate would have it, he was one of the worst possible people for her to be close to. Attachments were always dangerous in the Barrel, but to be bound to Kaz Brekker in such a way was more than madness. It was suicide.

Although, Inej mused, just working with Kaz was risk enough.

But she wasn't going to abandon him now. Not that she could with her debt and his resources and all the repercussions there were bound to be.

And maybe, just maybe, she was a little fond of him too.

So she resolved herself to stay despite her longing for freedom; a prisoner once more, this time bound with a very different kind of chain. She stayed even though she knew they would never be together, even if only by her own choice.

She stayed and subdued her longing heart and prayed to her saints, not for herself, but for the boy in black that had embedded himself so deeply within her life.  
~~~~~  
Kaz was of the opinion that he had his errant feelings under control.

He was wrong.

When Inej was brought to death's door by an attack he thought he had prepared for, Kaz saw red in a way he hadn't since Jordie died. And in that vicious rush, he might have overreacted just a little bit.

When the red finally subsided, it didn't leave completely. It was no longer over everything but still stained his gloves and his shirt and the deck and the mangled eye he was clutching with stiff fingers. He took a deep breath and reined himself in, mentally reprimanding himself for his lapse in control.

Even then he was on edge, snapping at the merchling and his misplaced righteous indignation before vanishing belowdecks in search of his injured Wraith. He scolded himself all the while, trying to convince himself that his worry was solely for the sake of the job. After all, a spider was an important asset; one that they’d need if they were to have any chance of success.

It was all in vain. Kaz truly was worried about Inej as a person, not an investment. In all honesty, she had never been just an investment. And now that Kaz knew exactly who she was, it was hard to continue treating her as such.

But he had to try. His childish weakness would only prove to be his downfall if he let it fester and grow. And with Jordie still unavenged, Kaz couldn’t afford to fall yet. 

That night he stayed awake on the deck, meticulously purging every bit of his uncouth emotion and locking it in a chest deep at the back of his mind, where his memories of the girl with the flowers in her hair had once lain dormant.  
~~~~~  
Inej didn’t know what she did wrong.

Then again, she might not have done anything. Kaz was probably just being Kaz, unpredictable as always.

His reasons usually eluded her, but his recent behavior was especially puzzling. He seemed to be actively avoiding her after the incident at the docks. When he had to speak to her, Kaz was utterly businesslike. When speaking to the others, he bordered on scathing. The journey seemed to be wearing on him just as much as it was on everyone else, and tempers were running high.

It was this change in behavior that reminded Inej why she would never entirely chain her heart to his.  
Kaz was known as a demon for a reason. It was true that he was the closest thing to decent that could be found in the Barrel, but only in regards to her. He had done terrible, terrible things, and his dubious friendship with her did nothing to negate them. He could not be called a good person, not even to the few he kept close.

But he could be better. And Inej would not take him until he was.  
~~~~~  
It was after the Ice Court heist, flush on the high of their impossible victory and nearly giddy with the thought of vengeance finally in sight, that Kaz allowed himself to hope.

He hoped that he would finally be able to make Pekka Rollins suffer. He hoped that he could build his empire for the two of them, just like he had always dreamed. He hoped against hope that when it was all over, Inej would stay.

But it was not to be.

The dream shattered like all his others, ending in pain and fear and rage. 

Jan Van Eck had Inej. He had her, and it was all Kaz's fault.  
~~~~~  
Kaz would come for her.

Inej's certainty was fading with each day that passed in her dismal prison. Would he really save her? Or would he just find a replacement? There was no way he could know that she was still intact, that she could still be used. If she really was just an investment, then there was no hope left.  
~~~~~  
Inej was back. 

Van Eck still had to be brought down, his team was still increasingly demanding, he still was a wanted man, but Inej was back and everything was right with the world.

Kaz couldn't ignore his insistent feelings any longer. They could have broken her legs, they could have beaten him to the brink of oblivion, and he still would have come for her. He would come even if he had to crawl, even if it cost him his life.

Kaz surreptitiously sent out orders using what little influence he had left, seeking out what Inej had lost so long ago.

If they lived through the coming fight, he would make her happy if it was the last thing he did. He would make sure she got everything she deserved. And truly, she deserved the world.

He would make sure she got the freedom she longed for, even if he had to let her go.  
~~~~~  
Inej was sure she was dreaming.

She was bruised and bleeding from dozens of little cuts, but the steam trapped in the bathroom blurred all the edges of her surroundings and made the lights hazy. Everything was surreal, and Kaz was there and he was so close it hurt.

She could hear herself talking, but her mind couldn't make sense of the words. And then Kaz was even closer and his bare hand was brushing gently over her exposed shoulder and her breath caught in her throat so she couldn't speak at all. In that moment, he looked more vulnerable than she had ever seen him. The sharp angles of his face were soft in the faded light, and in his eyes there was something nebulous and promising that she dared not name.

He reached for the edge of a bandage before releasing a shuddering sigh and drawing back to slip his gloves back over his trembling hands.

Now she was sure it was all real, because not even in her dreams had Kaz ever been so human.  
~~~~~  
It was done.

Looking out across the harbor to Inej's new ship, Kaz knew she wouldn't stay. He had known from the very beginning. Still, there was a part of him that had hoped she would. It quailed under the weight of her joyous smile, and Kaz knew that no matter how much it ached, he had made the right choice.

He let her pull him over to meet her parents, but his mind was far away.

This would be his last gift to her as her contract-holder. From this point on, Inej was free.

But if he no longer held her contract, what hold did he have over her? What reason did she have to return? The questions plagued him, but he pushed them aside, trying to ignore them up until her last moments on Ketterdam’s shore.

And if he withdrew into himself after she left, then who was there to know?  
~~~~~  
Inej sighed as she set foot on the solid boards of her dock. Her eyes swept over the familiar city, becoming reacquainted with the worn buildings and mock elegance that veiled the debauchery that lay within.

Her heart sped up as she wandered through the winding streets, eventually coming to a stop in front of a building sporting the visage a crow. She took a deep breath and climbed, just as she had so many times before. There was a light on in the room and a boy with a recognizably awful haircut seated at the table. All the longing she had felt during her long months at sea came rushing back.

Inej knocked gently on the window. She watched the boy look up, then stand as quickly as he was able, and she smiled.  
~~~~~  
When Inej was young, she had dreamed of a boy in black.

Now that boy was beside her, warm and alive, gloveless fingers tentatively entangled with her own. And when he looked back at her, he smiled, just as his dream self had all those years ago.

And they looked out over his city to the sea, where her ship awaited her return. She would have to go back eventually, and continue on with her righteous cause. But for now, she stayed, and watched as the setting sun bathed the rooftops in red.

She stayed, because at long last, she was right where she wanted to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget, comments are my lifesblood.


End file.
